Infinity Inc/Project Retirement Package
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
The cage door creaked open without warning. All of the Alphas present in this cage and the one beside it paused in mid-thought, waiting to see what might happen without being so obvious as to turn and look directly that way.
The little bat came flying a few feet in, most certainly not under her own power. She landed in a heap on the bare floor, skidded a bit farther on her ribs as she slowly rotated, then immediately -- frantically, it seemed -- flopped over onto her back.
An arm reached in from the surrounding darkness very briefly. The cage door slammed shut. No light turned itself on outside the cage: the vanishing being must have possessed enough authority to make the room sensors ignore its presence.
Fehral returned her attention to the wolf against whom she had just been arrayed. Bolwerc stared back down at her, blinking away his own focus on peripheral vision. As their eyes met, they silently agreed to suspend hostilities briefly. Both relaxed their grips on the dark green wool blanket, letting it flutter to the floor, and turned to face the center of the large rectangle.
The odd-looking little dhole hybrid sniffed carefully at the bat's chest, where blood oozed slowly but persistently. He ruffled his lips unhappily, barked something, and scurried back toward the clump of his five-member unit.
Fehral wished the vaguely fox-like dholes would start communicating more in the gesture code, if they were not going to learn any spoken language the other Alphas might understand. Stupid canines, she flung in their direction as she prowled over to the prone bat. Watch door. Warn.
When the pack of dholes showed an inclination to debate the instruction, Bolwerc diverted his travel long enough to swat a few heads. "Warn," he repeated aloud and by gesture. "Or bleed later."
"Who die and make you Observer, you jerk?" an oversized lynx hybrid woman growled. She mirrored Fehral's approach from the bat's opposite side.
"My designers," Fehral growled back.
That brought a few of the gathering Alphas up short.
Shut up, she continued as she began a careful inspection of the bat. Up close, the gold-furred, pudgy woman could be heard keening in pain behind her tightly-clenched jaw. When Fehral nudged her right arm away slightly, a long line of dark red flesh parted the formerly smooth curve of wing leather from a few inches below the peak of the radius to more than halfway down the entire membrane. Fehral, Bolwerc, and the lynx all hissed in sympathy.
"Fetch water," Fehral demanded of no one in particular.
"How much you want?" Bolwerc asked.
Fehral leaned closer to the bat's bloody chest, holding stringy locks of her black hair away. "All you can get," she said grimly. "And a rag for it. Hurry."
Minutes later, she scooted around to kneel at the bat's right shoulder. It took Fehral a couple of heaves before she had the bat tilted up on her left side far enough, arms and head held out of the way, and the shirt Bolwerc had confiscated from another wolf crammed tightly in the line between the bat's chest and the cage floor.
Fehral looked up at Bolwerc and the lynx, holding the five-gallon bottle of the caged Alphas' entire water supply between them. "Pour fast," she instructed, "just above blood. Have to wash all threat away into rag." To the whimpering bat, Fehral added, "This hurt. Lot of hurt. No fight. We do, or bad way die. You get?"
The patient nodded, short and jerky motions. As she started to pant more quickly, she confirmed aloud, "Sham'a get."
Fehral scowled: volunteering personal names, before-times names, was rare and dangerous. It meant the subject wanted to be known and remembered as a human … a person.
Giving away a human name was a gesture of absolute trust. The scientists said their subjects' human selves were nothing but templates, carved and eroded away until the true Hybrid Alpha emerged. They were not supposed to think of themselves as those people any more. Ever. Under any circumstance at all. Violation could lead to remedial training sessions.
Stupid bat, Fehral gestured where Sham'a would not see. "Do."
Despite her best efforts to hold still, Sham'a tried to curl up around her burning chest as the pressure of the water slapped against her body. Bolwerc slid one clawed foot into place so he could shove her thighs away from her stomach. When it was done, though, bubbles quit appearing in the blood that oozed from Sham'a's wounds, and the ugly smell of dissolving flesh faded away. While Sham'a gasped for air, Bolwerc grasped the two sides of the slit in her wing between his fingers. He shifted around until he had them correctly lined up. Bolwerc tightened his hold against Sham'a when she started to pull away, growling. "You not fly if it scars. You no more do the Corporation any good if you not fly. Let it heal correctly."
"Sham'a never fly again! Sham'a ruin!" the golden woman gasped between sudden sobs. Her lament continued in another language, not quite pitched at a high enough note to make those around her wince.
Fehral and Bolwerc traded somber glances between them. Fehral twisted around to look toward the Hybrid Alphas in the next cage. "We need a Delta," she called in a low tone.
"Scusarzi get," the skinny guy with the almost squirrel-like tail answered. He jiggled one of the connectors between cage bar and cage roof, causing that bar to lean sharply rightward for an instant. With well-practiced timing, he slid out before the gap could fill with electric charge, and vanished into the dark hallway.
Fehral straightened again, satisfied. She bent over Sham'a's shuddering chest. While Fehral's black hair momentarily covered the bat's face, she coaxed, "Help comes. You calm. Who did this to you?"
It took a couple of tries before recognizable syllables appeared between the hurt woman's sobs: "Mordant Etch."
Unhappy muttering went around both cages in the room, followed by a nervous renewal of interest in watching the surrounding shadows. Bolwerc and the lynx hissed; the room settled again, but the tension in the air only grew.
Only a few minutes later, heralded by the low-pitched warning whistles of the dholes, four of the Hybrid Deltas exuded out of the darkness. As they entered the room, the computer-controlled lighting built throughout the ceiling formed soft spotlights around each Delta, sized and given intensity in proportion to that individual's current level of authority. The widest, if faintest circle manifested around a thin man wearing mostly blue, and not until he had moved several feet into the Alpha Room's perimeter. The one in brown and silver stepped close enough to address both cages: "Scusarzi said you have some trouble. He wasn't very clear on its nature."
Most of the Alphas remained still and silent, staring past the leading Delta. Scusarzi crept up the two steps to his assigned cage door. He straightened enough to reach the latch and open it, then dropped back to all fours so he could slink through the narrow gap.
"Grigaere?" Bolwerc stretched up on his toes so he could see better over the small crowd. "Good! Come see!"
As that Delta let himself into Bolwerc's cage, a woman in tight-fitting red armor glanced down at the dhole pack. Report, Sutra-Dhara ordered silently. Immediately -- thankfully, in soft volumes -- all five started talking at once, none in English or the gesture code language. Grigaere glanced their way long enough to confirm that his peer understood their shrill burst of words, then put all of it out of his mind.
For Grigaere, generally viewed with respect and reliance, the watchful Alpha barrier melted away until he could just see the bubbly little bat Hybrid named "Furtis" laying halfway in the leopard's lap, the sizzling shirt crumpled a foot away from anyone, and a lynx known as Canhi hovering anxiously nearby.
Bolwerc knelt again, trying to hold the ripped wing in place. "Wing no regenerate fast enough," he explained to the Delta he was usually assigned to assist. "We wash out all chemical, but chest wound still bad shape."
"Good work," Bolwerc praised absent-mindedly. "Canhi, fetch me a bit of light."
The lynx blinked at him for a second. She moved away toward the cage door, not sure where to start her search. Fehral watched her go until she thought a quiet enough comment would escape Canhi's hearing: "Stupid Delta, we Alphas no allow equipment. Where get?"
Grigaere batted Fehral gently on the side of the head, a symbolic correction only. "She'll find something, Dussel. And meanwhile, she isn't casting a shadow over her littermate."
At the momentary blank expression which crept across Fehral's body language, Bolwerc cheerfully supplied a translation. "He call you twit. You are."
"Jerk," she growled back automatically, but her guttural voice had no bite to it.
Grigaere ignored the interchange, busy inspecting his patient. "How long was the hand pressed against your hide?" he asked directly.
Sham'a sniffled. "Forever."
"I doubt that," Grigaere returned. He looked over at his two informants, whose ears twitched a negative.
"Not see," Fehral supplied.
"How bad was the damage before you started treatment?" the field medic prompted.
The leopard thought about that for a moment. To his mild surprise, she reasoned out the new question's relationship to his previous one: "Probably not touch many heartbeat. Bone just start show, tiny spot, before wash." With a clawtip she drew a line through one of the rosettes on her own hide, indicating the size she meant. "Mordant been push make more chemical fast time. So far make weaker if fast."
Puzzling that out around the Alpha's reduced vocabulary and structural limitations, Grigaere gathered the idea that Mordant Etch spent extra time practicing with his ability to secrete acidic or alkaline sludge from the fatty deposits near the palms of his hands. He apparently wanted to increase his rate of output, but the resulting material proved much closer to pure water's neutral pH, which had to be frustrating Mordant Etch enormously.
Grigaere resisted the faint impulse to glance back at Mordant Etch, still standing near Kinba Kushi at the edge of the hall's shadows. He paused with one hand hovering above Furtis's injured wing, first, between Bolwerc's hands and a few inches above. Grigaere made a point of trapping the little woman's despairing gaze in his own, and staring until he knew his eyes were all she could see. "I am a Delta," he began his ritual. "I am Grigaere, and if you will submit, I will melt your pain."
Other Deltas had problems whenever circumstance forced them to use the submit command: the afflicted patient, another Hybrid Delta or one of the more instinctual Hybrid Alphas, was guaranteed to already be in severe pain and frantic about it, or submit would not have been called for in the first place. A patient in control of his body did not need someone to activate that particular neural programming routine in the first place.
Grigaere almost never had a patient fight the sudden overwhelming sensation of helplessness, and the accompanying compulsion to accept the utter vulnerability as the natural order of things -- to implicitly trust that weakness to the one giving the order, as the only way to end it. The command had been given to Grigaere more than once, so he had some sense of what his patient experienced, and how violently some other instincts tried to reject the implanted urge.
He loved it. He loved the kind of absolute control one got when another thinking being chose to place her entire existence into his dominion. He loved the fact that the most dangerous creatures he had ever witnessed in action -- his batch of wolves -- adored and respected him, gladly obeyed any command he chose to give, but still thought of him as a jewel among equals rather than a master to be feared, all because he had performed his true art. He loved the power he possessed, when they put their souls in his hands because they took for granted that their Grigaere would never wrong them.
He loved the sounds he could bring out of a thus-mesmerized patient as he worked, the pain noises and the relief noises and the mixture of the two, a concerto on par with any ever performed at the Dr. Anton Philipszaal back home.
Grigaere's glowing hand passed slowly down the little bat's wing. Despite her whimpering, and the shivers that passed through her other side, Furtis held the target area perfectly still. Bolwerc's fingers slid out of his way, until finally he was not needed at all; the wolf stood up and stepped away, making room for Grigaere closer to Furtis's side.
When Grigaere checked on his other informant, he saw that Fehral's head was turned sharply away. Her ears lay flat against her skull, and she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. That one was probably among the rare exceptions who would fight him -- and fall into his eyes anyway, of course, when her endurance ran out. In the meantime, for as long as she stayed still while holding his patient in place, Grigaere would let Fehral be.
He had to adjust the position of Fehral's arms, of course, before he could properly work on the bat's chest. No need to let her completely escape complicity in his art.
The leopard's shuddering intake of breath made a nice overture, three notes trilling upward, at the start of his second movement.
On the wing, the injury site only identified itself by a slight brightness to the skin color. Grigaere dismissed the restored flesh from his thoughts. He focused all of his awareness on the handprint-shaped chest wound sunken through the bat's strong patagium muscles. Bone no longer showed, but the boosted rate of any Alpha's recovery should naturally be swifter than what he saw: Furtis's system was overwhelmed by shock. Grigaere let his hand descend slowly, to just barely contact the raw edges of the exposed wound.
The bat whined in pain at even that light touch. Grigaere summoned the inner light to his hand again and pressed more firmly, until fresh blood seeped into the patchy wolf fur on his fingers and Furtis's cries of pain hit just the right note. Her body absorbed the light pouring out of his skin. The shocked mechanisms of hyper-regenerative cellular repair raced back into action, building new threads of muscle and sinew, forcing him back upward slowly. A thin layer of insulating fat assembled itself next, followed by pale café-au-lait skin. As the downy start of golden fur appeared, the bat's wail sank down into a moan of grateful relief; Grigaere released his concentration, taking a few steadying breaths, and removed his hand completely from her hide.
Not his best concerto, perhaps, and a short one at that … but as art, it served the moment.
Grigaere stood. He dusted off his hands, smiling kindly at Furtis, who peeked up at him almost reverently. Then he turned to face the door out of the cage, and his Hybrid Delta Series peers. Canhi skulked forward, a light wand from the first aid station in her paws; Grigaere took the proffered item, tapping it absently against his thigh.
"Mordant Etch," he confirmed for the record, "damaged the Alpha beyond future use by the Corporation. She would have been fit only for a test subject if we had not been called here."
Kinba Kushi's face mostly could not be seen behind his mask, but his body language showed the frown plainly enough. "You are sure of this?"
"The injury source is right," Grigaere said. "No one else leaves corrosive fluid with a touch. The hand mark is right." Flicking on the light wand briefly, he set its length firmly against Furtis's chest. "Right hand, pressed with some strength over a duration not longer than ten seconds, digitus medicinalis thickened and shortened by scarification." Shutting off the light wand, he finished, "The wing would have healed on its own, given enough time, but not the chest muscles which hold it steady during flight."
Kinba Kushi followed most of the silent Hybrid Alphas' gazes to Mordant Etch, whose lovely androgynous face gave back only a petulant blankness. "Mordant, did you have a reason for denying the Alpha medical care?"
"They are nothing but coarse resources," Mordant Etch provided melodically. "They're not art. Half of them aren't even earning out their investments."
"That is not for you to judge," Grigaere said angrily. "You pick on the weak, and they are our charges!"
"They are our toys," Mordant Etch corrected, unruffled. "As we are the toys of those placed above us."
Coolly, Kinba Kushi turned away into the shadows. His first few steps rang purposefully against the near walls.
"I perform my art," Mordant Etch said into the hush of the cage room. "You perform yours. Both are glorious."
Grigaere disdained to respond. He walked out of the cage's open door, stopped on the lower step, and waited in staring silence.
Less than five minutes later, the quintet of dholes all whistled again, very softly. After the mishmash of single notes, they fell utterly silent and scooted away from the front wall of the cage.
A man in a white linen suit, holding a silver-topped black cane, strolled into view. Every Hybrid present, without exception, immediately adjusted their posture to show docility or make themselves look small. Every Hybrid focused at least the edge of their vision on the man's hands, alert for the vaguest command.
Kinba Kushi, following three steps behind the elderly man and one to his left, was reduced to an afterthought.
"I understand," the immaculate man addressed the room genially, "that my Hybrids are in turmoil over the performance of Art."
With a great wrenching of willpower, Grigaere forced himself to enter the edge of the light field around his creator. "The instruments are mistuned, Benefactor," he suggested. "Mordant Etch practices his carving technique on them, and leaves them breaking apart wherever he discards them. He has no care for their future use."
A tiny gesture of one finger dismissed Grigaere, who stepped back immediately. He slid rightward when the Benefactor's attention no longer aimed in his direction, taking up a position to the side of the cage door's steps -- he did not want to risk any impression of making himself an obstacle.
"Mordant Etch, you are an exquisite creation," the white-haired man said conversationally. "You are, yourself, a living, breathing art in appearance; you gouge elegance and grace out of that which was plain or crude. I designed you to be a pleasure to the eyes in existence and in deed."
The androgynous man in the yellow unitard and the gauzy green overlayer preened under his creator's words. He dared another three steps forward into the circle of light. "It is a joy to serve you, Arkangel."
He might as effectively not have spoken, nor moved. "Report what you have done," that casual voice continued, "in simple and unadorned words. Let the truth grace the act."
Unhesitating, Mordant Etch responded: "I have practiced my technique on inert materials all week. I have yet to solve the weakening of my mordant when I try to produce etching fluid quickly, and it takes me far too long to switch between acids and bases. I became dismayed at my lack of progress. I thought to test my work in a more passionate, more vital setting. I happened across the pudgy thing, the one whose shape hinders its flight and so its service. I gave it pain, so that it would struggle; I used its struggles to feed the Art. The results were interesting but lacked refinement. I dropped the dross in its cage and returned to my own cage for reflection. Perhaps twenty minutes later, another of the dross appeared at our room entrance. It called out for a Delta, any Delta, to come direct the Alphas on solving a puzzle. Grigaere, Kinba Kushi, Sutra-Dhara Anima, and I followed it back to this room to investigate." The sallow-skinned metahuman made a little moue for one picturesque second. "From that moment until your arrival, I have performed nothing."
It was hardly unadorned, but Mordant Etch at least had tried to refrain from biasing his report. Arkangel glanced over at Sutra-Dhara for an instant, then clearly decided she had nothing to contribute. "True art is unique by its nature. Once it is in the world, a work of art alters the world in which it exists; and if that work ever ceases to exist, it can never be remade, never replaced. The Alphas are not art." He looked briefly on Mordant Etch, as if checking whether his point was understood.
"Of course not," Mordant Etch agreed smugly.
"The Hybrid Alpha Series project line, however, as a body: that is art."
Arkangel turned to address the occupants of the cages, and the two Deltas who stood in near them. "I came to inspect not the facility itself, this month, nor the progress in the laboratories, but to observe the products in residence. I am selecting specimens to stock another facility, a smaller one, but with more flexible opportunities for client work. I will not break apart any existing unit, provided it has performed well recently. Some of you will go to the island facility. Some of you will go to Eastern Europe. Some specimens from other facilities will come here."
"And I, Master?" Mordant Etch dared to prod.
The man in immaculate white linen strolled in a nonchalant circle until he was headed back toward the hall. "I brought with me, this trip, a most glorious new work of art: the Killing Dance. He will have little time to practice merging his art with the labors of others before the shipment to Etoile. I am pleased to grant him this opportunity."
The inky darkness of the hall cleaved off a man-shaped shadow, tall and lithe, that walked across the bluntly-lit floor as if physically buoyed by music. Like Sutra-Dhara, he wore tight-fitting leather armor from neck to toe; but where hers had red detailing over a brassy base layer to protect her rail-thin form, Killing Dance's stitched and strapped charcoal-on-black armor snugly delineated every curve of a very muscular dancer's build. His musculature was more defined than either of the male Deltas in the room, and taller as well. Were it not for Arkangel's matching six-and-change feet of height to provide some sense of proportion, Killing Dance would seem to dwarf anyone in the room. Certainly he made Mordant Etch -- willowy, androgynous, unevenly athletic, and more than three inches short of six feet tall -- look doll-like.
Arkangel smiled at the leather-strapped figure fondly. When the newcomer approached close enough almost to touch, Arkangel held up one long finger in abeyance: "Aside from Kinba Kushi, none of the creations here have had the honor of viewing your art. Today you will begin." Without waiting for acknowledgement, Arkangel turned back to indicate one dark-haired individual. "That, my dancer, is the Mordant Etch. That entire project has been terminated."
"As you command, Sir," the dark-clad man replied.
The brilliant light circle which had centered on Arkangel stretched into an ellipse, with Killing Dance at one focus and Mordant Etch at the other. The remaining Deltas scrambled to get completely out of the light field, and even those Alphas close enough to the cage fronts that they touched its edge were quick to retreat. Arkangel continued his slow amble out of the room entirely. His cane tapped the floor every few steps, like a bell counting down to the start of the combat.
"Cue the music," Arkangel instructed, and vanished into the impenetrable pitch of the hall.
Very faintly, the electrical systems in the walls played the sprightly opening notes of the Preludio from Bach's Partita No. 3 in E Major. Grigaere thought he might be the only non-participant to recognize it, but he found it a fascinating choice.
Killing Dance flowed inevitably across the intervening space, a naked sword ready in each hand. Mordant Etch lost valuable seconds by gaping after Arkangel. He seemed to realize his danger only at the last possible second, throwing up both hands to knock away the descending blades. The sharp edges skittered across the hard plates in the back of Mordant's hands, sweeping down and away only to come whirling back almost immediately.
The dancer's momentum brought him nearly chest-to-chest with his target for an instant. As his arms followed the sweep of his two swords harmlessly past either side, Killing Dance spoke softly, an intimate comment meant not for the audience but for his opponent: "I hear the music. Let's dance."
Oh, my, Grigaere thought to himself despite the anxious vigilance the newcomer's assault stirred: I do believe I could work with this one.
On drilled reflex, Mordant Etch threw an elbow strike toward the retreating shoulder of his opponent. Killing Dance stepped quickly backward, arching his back just enough to completely evade. The glimmering edge of an otherwise black sword came flashing across Mordant's upper chest in a crisp line.
Mordant twisted away, but not far enough. He saw, more than felt, his arm gape open. Then he was safe, out of the path as the second blade sliced through the same air in the opposite direction. Mordant bent his waist sideways and down, swinging through a deep curve like a breakdancer flinging her hair. He used the momentum to throw himself back toward the opponent, palm first, ready to burn whatever he touched.
Mordant struck something warm and solid, too thin to be that powerfully-built forearm. Automatically his fingers wrapped around it, gripping tightly. As the enemy danced backward, Mordant turned to bring his weakened arm into shorter range. For a second he also had a firm grip on something supple, perhaps a leather strap. Immediately, Mordant Etch exerted himself on the two grasped objects.
The left sword circled around and up. Killing Dance struck at a perfect downward angle, Mordant's right breast to left waist. Mordant hissed in pain and jerked away, losing his grip on the blade of Killing Dance's right sword but taking the fast-rotting strap away with him.
The dancer circled around to Mordant Edge's left side in a step light as any waltz. He struck again, a sharply level thrust that spun Mordant more than halfway to face the side-by-side cages of the Alphas. Mordant wobbled on his feet, gasping in shock -- he simply couldn't move fast enough for this opponent, had never grappled anything so nimble -- and threw himself gracelessly forward.
Behind him, Killing Dance noticed the ugly crease in the blade of his right sword, where almost half the metal's thickness had been eaten away across a handspan of dark space. The man in black screamed abrupt rage.
Mordant Edge skidded to a stop on hands and knees, inches from the open cage door. Thoughts of safety flashed blatantly across his elegant face. He scrambled upward, breath hitching.
One of the Alphas, the dark-haired little leopard, slunk forward through the tiny gap between larger bodies. No protect, her paws signalled in small, covert motions. You no Delta. With a sharp hiss of pain-filled breath, she grasped the electrified cage door long enough to fling it shut.
Enraged at the defiance, Mordant Etch forced himself to his full height. He turned back toward his attacker just in time to see the death-blow aimed squarely at his throat. Mordant threw his hands up again, cursing the slowness of his left side. Too late, he realized that the incoming blow used the weakened right sword, which meant that it might be a feint to draw his guard out of the path for the left.
Even Grigaere winced at the harrowing noise of Mordant Etch's electrocution. Three feet away, Killing Dance loomed furiously over the frying corpse, staring at his trapped sword where it connected the body to the live current. He never noticed the red-garbed woman who flipped the master switch for the cages' circuit, but Killing Dance certainly reached for his sword's hilt the instant electricity ceased to crackle past it.
"That is the second time you have been involved in the death of a Delta, little Alpha," Grigaere addressed the creature at the edge of Killing Dance's spotlight. "No one will find you at fault for this one … but I very much recommend that you do not ever find a third."
Stupid Delta, she gestured scornfully. "Etch ended. He said. No Delta."
Grigaere shook his head. That one would find her doom no matter how many allowances were made. Dismissing the woman from his mind, he turned to greet his new peer properly: "A promising first performance!" he praised, more incautious in tone than he actually felt.
Angry eyes flashed up at Grigaere for a brief moment, then returned to careful examination of his blade. "Too brief. I hope to find a better opportunity with the rest of the project to be retired."
"Doubtful," Grigaere sympathized. "The etcher's designers numbered only three. Come, I'll escort you to their laboratory. Someone else will clean up … this."
Killing Dance glared at his unsheatheable right sword. "I need a blacksmithy first."
Grigaere shook his head. "Not at this facility, but we have a nice armory. Perhaps something there will do until the Benefactor provides you with a replacement instrument. Let us go look, and speak of encore espirando."
Blinking, the dancer set aside his annoyance. "You study music?"
Grigaere swept his hat toward the hallway cheerfully. "My dear, dear comrade, I create music. I am the Fiddler!" As they began to move, he added in a confidential tone, "It is not to your discredit at all, for you could not have known, but the Mordant Etch had a surprisingly modal countertenor howl when properly stimulated. If you could adjust your blows a fraction of a blade's width below such a target's ribcage, so that you overload the nerves but spare lung capacity, a quite rewarding descant will almost always result...."
It was only after the three Hybrid Deltas had all wandered away that the Alphas dared react. Canhi and Furtis collapsed on their spot, entwined around each other and sniffling in delayed terror. Most of the rest immediately began comparing notes. They filled the room with short-lived babble seeking facts on the new Delta and his personality -- no one knew anything, though much was made of Arkangel's undisguised self-congratulation over his latest project -- and longer-lived gossip as to who had received correction, who had earned praise, and whether the former or the latter put one in greater danger of assignment to the obviously hazardous Killing Dance. For beings who had often lost a lot of ability to form critical language sounds, they found ways to communicate speculation and wild guesses on nearly any topic they could still comprehend.
Bolwerc navigated a winding route through the fear-concealing chatter until he spotted Fehral, very close to where they had stood at Furtis's arrival, hissing at two of the russet dholes while swatting a third. "Mine!" she snarled furiously, tugging at the slightly ripped wool blanket.
Bolwerc ended the squabble by stepping on the green cloth; his weight yanked it out of all the others' grasps. The dholes, not thinking the prize worth a second combat front, scattered for their makeshift nest. Fehral flicked her outspread claws on one hand in his direction, palm more-or-less toward the floor: Jerk! she was calling him.
"You idiot," the Scandinavian wolf hybrid hissed down at her, "you gonna get punish if you not meek. Alphas protect Deltas! Alphas assist Deltas! Alphas do not BICKER with Deltas!"
Fehral's lashing tail slowed as she studied Bolwerc thoughtfully. After a few minutes she spoke at a deliberate, carefully-enunciated pace: "Screw all of that."
Bolwerc stared at her in shock. "You want punish?"
"No care," Fehral answered in a more normal, if resentful, tone. "Fehral get punish anyway. I been Alpha more year than you, stupid wolf. Meek, no meek, not matter. Fehral no unit. Fehral no assign to Delta. Fehral no good more'n three, four week ever. Get punish for trap Mordant? Okay. No punish? Get punish for other bad. Fehral get rules. Fehral no can. Mind scream 'defy'. Body do. End up punish 'til break." She tugged irately at the blanket under his foot. "So Fehral pick when be bad. Know how much punish get. Not your problem. Give, mine!"
Bolwerc looked at the blanket, then at the spotted hybrid with the maybe-deathwish. "You stupid," he warned, his voice quieter still. "Fine, you go do stupid stuff. No risk us. No risk Grigaere. Deltas victims too."
Fehral glanced around at the oblivious Alpha Hybrids, all studiously ignoring the quintet of gowned human employees who arrived to clean up the remains. "We all victim," she answered sadly. "Some juss' take it out on rest."
